Three games into the new Premier League campaign and Mohamed Salah has already recorded three goals and three assists. Since moving to Liverpool in 2017, Salah has always been one of the league’s most devastating attackers, but the sheer volume of opportunities he creates is a reminder that Salah is more than a goalscorer.
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His skill set has, at times, been framed narrowly. Salah arrived at Liverpool as an electric dribbler who also chipped in with goals but few anticipated that, in his debut campaign, he would set a new goals record (since surpassed by Erling Haaland) for a 38-game Premier League season.
He has since won the Golden Boot two more times, albeit sharing it on both occasions. Last season, the Egyptian climbed into the top 10 for most Premier League goals. By the end of this campaign, he’ll probably have risen to sixth or seventh place.
But there’s also a good chance Salah will surpass David Beckham and end this season in the top 10 Premier League assisters, too.
Salah’s creative ability is sometimes overlooked, perhaps because of his goalscoring output and because being deployed as an inverted winger — now the standard approach in top-level football — is generally about players cutting inside and shooting, whereas wingers were once focused on creating. We don’t primarily think of Salah as offering crosses like Trent Alexander-Arnold or through balls like Martin Odegaard, but only Kevin De Bruyne has recorded more assists since Salah joined Liverpool.
Salah is one of the division’s most creative players, and his two assists against Manchester United at the weekend — one played with his right foot, the other stabbed with his left — show the evolution in his game.
So let’s ignore Salah’s goalscoring record. What else, as a wide forward, is he all about?
Well, Salah is no longer a prolific dribbler. His number of attempted take-ons seems to be on the decline but more notably, his dribble success percentage has plummeted from his early years — down from 63 per cent to 35 per cent.
Players tend to become less dangerous dribblers as they age and Salah is 32, but it’s still surprising that he’s suffered such a stark drop-off in this respect.
In fact, of the 51 players to attempt 75 or more take-ons in last season’s Premier League, only two — Raheem Sterling and Zeki Amdouni — had a lower completion rate than Salah.
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A more niche — but very telling — statistic comes in the form of Salah’s ‘goal-creating actions’, which takes the final two ‘events’ (such as a cross, pass or take-on) before a goal is scored, regardless of which player did so (goalscorer, assister, pre-assister). And in terms of take-ons, Salah beat an opponent 14 times leading up to a goal in his debut season. In the next six seasons combined, he only did so on 13 occasions.
But his numbers in terms of creativity remain almost absurdly consistent — in all but one of his seven Liverpool campaigns, he has created between 103 and 106 chances for a team-mate. In reality, there’s some variation because he has played more games in some seasons than others, but this is evidently a solid output.
Salah’s numbers are particularly impressive considering he no longer takes Liverpool’s corners or wide free kicks, thanks to the rise of Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson. Only three of his assists have come from those situations — the most recent coming on the opening day of Liverpool’s title-winning campaign in 2019-20. Although he has recorded some other ‘set-piece assists’, these have been simply touching the ball a couple of yards for Alexander-Arnold to smash home.
Salah’s open-play assists are interesting. Here’s a map of the positions of his 72 Premier League assists. The positions are much as you would expect, generally played from the inside-right channel. The majority are played with his favoured left foot (red dots), particularly those from relatively deep positions, where he can turn inside and play through balls in behind.
The right-foot (blue) and outside-of-left-foot (yellow) assists always take place from close to the byline, when Salah is going down the line more. That makes sense. But if you use the drop-down menu to show the positions of his assists from various seasons, it’s clear that Salah’s right-footed assists are a relatively recent development. Divide his 71 Liverpool assists in half — one assist came with Chelsea — and you can see that while only three of the first 36 were played with his right foot, nine of the next 35 have been.
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Look at 2021-22, and having previously been reliant on his left foot, Salah began getting into wider positions and using his right foot more to cross, or play square balls across the box. Interestingly, this change came in the season before the arrival of Darwin Nunez, a target man who wanted to be supplied with crosses. There’s also been a rise — albeit not as pronounced — in the number of shots he has taken with his right foot, suggesting he has worked on improving his weaker foot.
But Salah remains very left-footed, and something he has added to his game is the ability to play curved passes in behind with the outside of his left foot. Again, those assists have generally come in recent seasons, and make different passes possible. In the 5-0 win at Watford in October 2021, conventionally playing this ball to Sadio Mane with his left foot would probably mean the ball running through to the goalkeeper. Instead, it bent perfectly into Mane’s path.
Looking at the videos of Salah’s assists, the most interesting observation calls back to something mentioned earlier. Salah no longer dribbles past defenders regularly and, while it’s tempting to look at that solely from his perspective, what if the defenders are acting differently? The more you look, the more it seems Salah has such a reputation for skinning defenders that they back off too much, allowing him time on the ball and extra space to play through balls.
Here’s his second assist from Liverpool’s most recent game, against Manchester United. When Luis Diaz slips the ball to Salah…
… Diogo Dalot freezes, then retreats. There’s no attempt to confront Salah, because he is scared he will be beaten down the outside…
… and by the time Salah plays the pass, Dalot has backed off into the penalty box. Being slightly too far from Salah means there’s a wider angle for a ball past him back to Diaz, who scores.
Here’s another assist for Diaz last season at Chelsea. When Salah receives this ball, Levi Colwill’s main intention is to not be dribbled past…
… to the extent that he simply retreats 20 yards towards his goal without putting pressure on Salah. Again, the angle opens up for a relatively simple, but penetrative, through ball.
Here’s a similar assist, for Cody Gakpo against Newcastle United last year.
Even when Salah has to strain to receive a cross-field pass on his chest, Dan Burn doesn’t want to confront him.
Salah could therefore dribble freely, while looking up and assessing his options in the middle.
This time, the pass is bent around the defender with the outside of Salah’s left foot — again, he has had more time to think about his pass and has been given space away from the defender.
And that’s why Salah is so effective — not despite dribbling past opponents less, but perhaps because he’s dribbling less. His reputation for excellence in one aspect of the game means defenders over-compensate, and that has allowed him to shine in another aspect.
“The young Mo was a super-fast player who could run in behind,” said his former manager Jurgen Klopp last season. “From the first day here he had to do different things, and he adapted extremely well, but the playmaker in that front row was probably more Roberto Firmino and you don’t need then two players (out wide) who are deeper.
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“Now it is slightly different — especially when Darwin Nunez is playing we have another speedy player up there, so that changed Mo’s position. He is smart enough to adapt to all these things and there has been a massive development since he arrived. He is, in all phases, world-class and that is probably the best thing you can say about a player.”
It may well be that 2024-25 is Salah’s final season in the Premier League. Upon his departure, Salah shouldn’t be remembered as simply a prolific goalscorer, but should be put alongside Thierry Henry and Wayne Rooney as a prolific goalscorer who was a consistent creator too.
(Top photo: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Michael Cox concentrates on tactical analysis. He is the author of two books - The Mixer, about the tactical evolution of the Premier League, and Zonal Marking, about footballing philosophies across Europe. Follow Michael on Twitter @Zonal_Marking
